Case History: identity changed. I knew Rani through a crafting guild, though not well. She had seen my posts seeking practice clients and had bravely joined, because she was experiencing regular, intense low back pain, as well as ongoing anxiety/depression/dysthymia. Rani came with a previous interest in dance. At intake, Rani reported that she had finally seen a physiotherapist after years of radiating lumbar pain with no treatment. She had delayed going because of financial barriers, but the pain had become overwhelming. *She wasn't sure if she understood the exercises, or how they would help her. Sleep issues Regarding her mental health challenges she had seen psychiatrists, counsellors, etc and she had received moderate levels of success. She had been impacted developmental trauma and racism had not felt real resolution with that. She was in a companionable marriage and had 1 grown son and 1 grand daughter. She had a deep appreciation of nature. She still worked for her own private interior design business, but was getting closer to retirement. Rani wondered if SMT could help her with her lumbar pain, and maybe help her with anxiety-related tension. Rani describes alternation btwn extreme tension/ frustration/ panic to collapse and dispair
Format: Our sessions have been done online as we live in different communities, over the course of 1.5 years aprox 15 sessions have been done, weekly or bi weekly for a while, then tapering to occasionally.
Observations: In basic task observation: she exhibited a varying indirectness, slightly accelerating time, quick task-related level change. In posture, movement and voice: Rani often presented with collapsing in her arms and shoulders, this sometimes corresponded to voice being lower and slower, gaze dropping down, words of self-defeat, decrease of spinal/ head-tail connectivity or shortening head-tail, as well impacted heel-sit bone connection, and palm-scapula connection. There wasn't a sense of breath support. There was a sense of collapsing throughout the body often but not always, shaping seemed to be shortening head-tail. When doing spinal movement Rani exhibited a lot of mobility. In expressive movement: Rani could really use a fairly full kinesphere, used rhythm and timing and a strong sense of playfulness showed by engaging her body in diverse ways- level changes, varying body areas, some flow, often indirect in space, could initiate more mid-limb or distal, upper-lower patterns were observed, Rani could use space by going to diverse areas, travelling around, changing levels, and moving through planes. Rani's face often lit up when doing expressive movement. There was still not a lot of sense of core connectivity. At other times Rani's movement may exhibit a much more decelerated use of time, with emphasis in relationship btwn head and hands, eyes closed, shaping would be slowly carving and enclosing, rotary factor present in some areas- wrists, movement generated from lower spine, more sense of breath would be present, weight shifts would be gentle, pathways were transverse. kinesphere mid range. A look of deep sensitivity or deep sensing and inner listening would be on her face.
Existing supporting factors: Rani had loved ecstatic dance pre pandemic and was open and enthusiastic to movement Rani is a very curious person and interested in learning, asks great questions Rani really enjoyed her connection w her toddler grand daughter, and often took her into local parks to connect to nature and a mostly companionable marriage partner Rani had good community relationships that gave her hope and a sense of belonging.
Obstacles that came up: self worth issues relating to self care the event of moving apartments and huge decluttering disrupted progress and routine setting cycles of procrastination and panic (explosive stress/ panic attacks) with work history of experiencing abuse, racism World stress-ie pandemic stress, war in Ukraine, racism, climate change
Primary Goals and Tools used: Goal: Pain management of the lumbar spine, understanding physio excercizes Tool: breath support, breath and pelvis, spinal movement patterns, review physio excercizes, look at images of target muscles in physio program, use hands to feel target muscles working, body tracking Goal: grounding/ calming/ self soothing Tools: breath, yielding weight (yield push reach pull), body scans/ tracking, weight sensing, rocking, Goal: more body-level connection- Tools: breath support, core-distal, head tail, palm scap, heel sit-bone, naval radiation, and developmental movement patterns, exploring kinesphere, yielding, connected sequencing or feeling pulls, arm circles, Goal: possible body/ movement support for extreme stress Tool: imagining a moderately stressful scenario with body sensation tracking (ie stuck in traffic, late for a work meeting), the unwinding tension using skills above Goal: Promoting habit building and self-care Tool: laymen level encouragement discussions around inner voices about being worth self-care Tool: just for fun, exploring embodied anatomy, physiology- bones, synovial fluid, respiratory system and cardiac system Rani tended to have a lot of questions about the movements of her body and very often we would refer to online anatomical images, hands on directed self-palpation to understand her body more. Also scholarly, peer-reviewed articles were shared on supports for mindfulness, movement and lifestyle supports for mental health.
Interesting connection- physio was getting Rani to do glutes and hamstring strengthening as support for low back pain. She had also told me in a session that she had grown up with family violence and in her culture there was no defiance allowed. The stance of defiance or standing one's ground was not experienced in her body. Defiance is an emphasized heel-sit bone stance, also maybe other areas of the back body. And that was what the physio was wanting to do, to reduce her pain from muscle weakness, and the muscles here were very rarely used beyond basic movement. Her postural habits were to always soften and agree.
Outcomes: Really the changes that last and has impact tend to be based on what we incorporate regularly and find a way to integrate with our lives. Rani was able to integrate some of these skills into her own life for some periods of time, and found when she did choose to slow down, yield her weight and notice, she would take in more of the world around her and be less in her negative self-talk. That is a worthy improvement. She noticed and had more appreciation for nature, her breath became a calming resource when used, as did body tracking, weight sensing. She used some of these tools to help her process additional world stressors. She would adapt body connection changes for short periods of time. Mainly I had hoped to impart tools to calm and ground as a foundation, and then hope that further might be made, when feeling more stable. As well as deepen her understanding of her physio routine.
Recently she did an embodied anatomy/ physiology session with me, while the individual anatomy/ physiology explorations were interesting to her (bone, synovial fluid, lungs and heart), she felt profoundly, spiritually moved by understanding and exploring the intricacy of her body.